Guide: City's growth is varied and steady

Updated 8:36 am, Monday, June 3, 2013

Contractor Joe Montoya works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at Toyota Motor Manufacturing.

Contractor Joe Montoya works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at Toyota Motor Manufacturing.

Photo: Express-News File Photo

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Contractor Joe Montoya works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Contractor Joe Montoya works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Photo: San Antonio Express-News

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Workers keep trucks coming off the final inspection line every 63 seconds at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Workers keep trucks coming off the final inspection line every 63 seconds at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Photo: San Antonio Express-News

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Team leader Michael Pelayo works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Team leader Michael Pelayo works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Photo: San Antonio Express-News

Image 5 of 5

Team leader Michael Pelayo works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Team leader Michael Pelayo works on an assembly line installing the inside trim on trucks at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing vehicle assembly plant in San Antonio on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013.

Photo: San Antonio Express-News

Guide: City's growth is varied and steady

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When San Antonio leaders convened the NAFTA 20 summit last November, it was more than a chance to celebrate the signing place of North America's landmark trade agreement. It was affirmation of San Antonio's 20 years as a hub of NAFTA-related commerce.

But San Antonio, Texas' second largest city, never rested on its historic south-of-the-border ties and geographic fortune as the crossroads of Interstate 35 (the Pan American Highway) and Interstate 10.

Cross-border trade is only part of a mix that includes a Toyota manufacturing plant, a bustling medical complex and university scene, and a downtown kept lively by tourists, convention-goers, and service members from the city's three military bases.

Joint Base San Antonio employs more than 92,000 people, is home to nation's largest military hospital, and this year assumed training duties for airmen who direct airstrikes in combat.

USAA, the financial services and insurance company that is San Antonio's biggest private employer, just leased about 128,000 square feet of office space to accommodate up to 1,000 more workers. Companies including Rackspace, Petco and SunEdison have all added local jobs.

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The Eagle Ford Shale play, a major oil and gas development in South Texas, has gone from being an outskirts phenomenon to a direct hit. Companies are buying up office space and employers are aggressively competing in the region for workers. A recent study by the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation credited the oil and gas boom with creating 4,000 new Bexar County jobs.

St. Mary's University economist Steve Nivin said key bragging rights are coming through the Great Recession on solid ground, a strong residential real estate market, unemployment consistently below state and national averages, and investment in city neighborhoods and services.

According to the San Antonio Board of Realtors, sales of single family homes have tilted the city toward a seller's market, with homes spending about 99 days on the market in February and 96.3 percent of them selling for list price.

Voters overwhelmingly approved a $596 million bond for an array of quality-of-life and infrastructure projects, including connectors to streamline movement on Loop 1604-U.S. 281 interchanges on the city's North Side.

Mayor Julián Castro has launched the “Decade of Downtown,” a residential development effort aimed at breathing new life into areas around the Pearl Brewery and other parts of the city's core.

The new VIA Primo buses are electric-diesel hybrids, part of a commitment to green energy.

“I would say it's solidly growing,” Nivin said of the city's economy.

“There's military, medical, manufacturing, Pearl and development downtown ... and the hospitality industry has been doing well. Really, at this point it's just nice, broad-based growth across the board in a variety of sectors. And that's a nice way to grow.”